After some somerootingguides by the users popped up we made our own, and now that we're deeper in I've updated it. I’ve highlighted the team you’re rooting for in each. All times eastern.

UPDATE 3/9: Just about nothing went right for our rooting interests last night except Duke easily dispatched the Domerless Domers. We're now 5-14 overall on our rooting guide, though to be fair we were picking against a lot of favorites. There's nothing to be done for Maryland and Penn State since everything that could conspire to move them down RPI has transpired—the Terps dropped 6 spots from yesterday without even playing—and everyone around them now has upward mobility. We're going to stop tracking that now since they’re both probably trapped below the 75th threshold, and just focus on various conference champions we don't want to pass Michigan.

Friday, March 9

12:00pm

Cincinnati vs SMU (ESPN2). Why: Michigan’s competing for a protected seed and there are too many Midwest teams for too few Detroit slots. Cincy is a 2 in the bracket matrix but an early tourney loss could have an outsized effect given their weakish schedule (best non-conf win is @UCLA) and deny Wichita State a shot at a signature win later on.

VCU vs Rhode Island (NBCS). Why: No, URI isn't catching us; this is because Michigan beat VCU earlier this year and an upset here would be nice for an RPI bump, while a run to the A10 title would sneak in another tourney win. It won't happen but it'd be fun.

1:00pm

Bama vs Auburn (ESPN). Why: Auburn has a slightly stronger resume than Michigan’s right now. A loss to a mediocre Tide could push them below us and lock Michigan into a 3-see. However Auburn could also do us a favor if we get stuck behind them by winning the SEC and keeping Kentucky, Florida, or Tennessee from passing us. So if Auburn wins, just root for them the rest of the way.

Kentucky vs Georgia (ESPN). Why: Kentucky is currently a five seed to Bracket Matrix but a run in the SEC Tourney could conceivably pass Michigan while boosting the resumes of Tennessee and Auburn. Florida is the last double-bye in the SEC tourney and are currently a six seed by the way. Georgia knocked out Mizzou, probably the best shot to blast the SEC threats out of the water, so now we're UGA fans I guess? Hard to root for that school.

Miss St vs Tennessee (SEC Network). Why: Any chance of Michigan moving up means passing one or two SEC teams, and Tennessee is currently one spot ahead of us in the bracket matrix and 10th in RPI.

Temple vs Wichita State (ESPNU). Why: Wichita State can’t play in Wichita because they’re the hosts so we really don’t want them winning the AAC tournament and passing Michigan for a protected seed (they’re the second four-seed to Bracket Matrix). Better Cincy than Wichita.

9:00pm

West Virginia vs Texas Tech (ESPN2). Why: Both are technically threats to Michigan but TTU is one spot below us on Bracket Matrix so a win here could push them permanently over Michigan while WVU has a ton of RPI to make up.

UCLA vs Arizona (Pac 12 network). Why: Zona (last four-seed on BracketMatrix, 18th RPI) would probably need a championship to have a shot at passing Michigan but the best possible time for them to go out is versus a team Michigan beat.

The Rest of the Weekend

I'm just going to do this by conference now:

ACC:Anyone but Clemson. UNC helps those around us as much as it does us, Michigan can't pass UVA, UNC, or Duke. Championship Game: 8:30 pm ESPN tomorrow night.

Atlantic 10: VCU all the way! They play A10 1-seed Rhode Island in an hour or so in the quarterfinals so there's a way's to go.

Big East: An upset by Butler or Providence doesn't move Nova or Xavier down far enough, and neither can catch Michigan but feel free to root for one-seed chaos anyway?

Big XII: Would strongly prefer WVU knocks out Texas Tech then loses to whichever Kansas team (probably Kansas). In the championship root for whichever team has the most Kansas in their name. CG will air at 6:00 p.m. on ESPN.

ConfUSA: Root for Southern Miss to maybe (not likely, they're not very good) give Michigan another victory over a tournament team. They play Marshall this afternoon and the winner of ODU/WKU tomorrow night at 7:30pm, CBSsports.

Pac 12: Root for UCLA and against Arizona. A Pac12 banner shouldn't put the Wildcats over Michigan but never trust the selectors with a marquee name. Championship game is at 10pm on FS1.

SEC: They're still in the quarterfinals so this is a bit more complicated. Root for all the upsets tonight in hopes of Michigan finishing above the entire SEC, but if they don't come off you want Auburn (8th RPI, first 3 seed to Bracket Matrix) to win it, followed by Florida (37th, first 6 seed), Kentucky (17th, last 5 seed), and last of all Tennessee (3rd 3 seed, 10th RPI). Worst case scenario is Tennessee over Auburn in the finals, since that'll put both of them over Michigan. Florida over Auburn in the finals would get iffy. Semifinals will be at 1pm and 3pm tomorrow on ESPN, and the championship will be at noon on ESPN on Sunday.

After playing a compressed schedule then four games in four days Michigan gets to watch the rest of college basketball sort out their seed resumes this week. We’ve had a couple of rooting guides pop up on our radar. The one by Mercury Hayes included some I’ve left out, and the board post by ish goes into a bunch of scenarios. There’s also this very useful twitter thread. We figured since you’re all probably junkies like us, you’d also like to know when these games are taking place. So here’s a rooting guide with gametimes and stuff! I’ve highlighted the team you’re rooting for in each (in blue if it only matters to getting Penn State to 75th in RPI). All times eastern.

UPDATE 3/8: Noted the scores and winners from last night. Now Maryland is 74th in RPI and Penn State has fallen to 80th, so really you're rooting for nobody else to pass Maryland now. I don't know how much the quartiles will actually mean to the committee--maybe not at all--but it's a number they see so we might as well track it.

Wednesday, March 7

5:30pm

Cal vs Stanford (Pac12 Network). Why: Penn State is currently 77th in RPI and Stanford (76th) losing would be one fewer teams ahead of PSU. If PSU gets up to 75th that’s another Q1 win for Michigan.RESULT: Stanford 76-58, but Cal is such a schedule weight they dropped to 83rd.

7:00pm

Notre Dame vs Virginia Tech (ESPN2). Why: Same reason; ND is 70th in RPI. Also why: they’re an MSU non-conference win, and State needs to cherish every tournament team victory since they skipped out on a lot of chances in-conference. Also also why: Screw ND.RESULT: Notre Dame 76-65. VT pissed away a 19-point lead with some Teddy V assistance. ND is up to 64th.

Texas vs ISU (ESPNU). Why: Michigan beat Texas on the road earlier this year so any little boost to that victory should help. Even if they ride Mo Bamba all the way to a banner they can’t catch up to Michigan but a decent run could put them in the tournament. Also Shaka Smart was college roommates with one of our big sponsors. Hook ’em!RESULT: Texas 68-64

Ole Miss vs South Carolina (SEC Network) Why: Back to helping Md/PSU. South Carolina is 80th in RPI and a run in the SEC could push them up.RESULT: SC 85-84, up to 75th in RPI

North Carolina vs Syracuse (ESPN2). Why: This is an argument because UNC is a two seed right now to Bracket Matrix, so UNC losing to Syracuse miiight give a Michigan a shot to move up a line. But honestly, nah, the H2H settles things if it’s close, and I hate Cuse.RESULT: UNC 78-59

Thursday, March 8

2:00pm

Clemson vs Boston College (ESPN2). Why: Clemson is currently 12th in RPI--one spot ahead of Michigan--so the sooner they go out in this tourney the better.

3:00pm

Colorado vs Arizona (Pac12 Network). Why: Zona is currently the last 4 seed on Bracket Matrix and Michigan is the last 3, so a run could pull the Wildcats ahead of us. Root against them all the way: they probably get UCLA in the 2nd round by the way.

5:30pm

Cal State Bakersfield vs Utah Valley (ESPN3). Why: Utah Valley is 73rd in RPI and we want Penn State to get to 75th to convince the committee to count that as a Quartile One victory instead of a Quartile Two victory because Penn State’s non-conference schedule was crap so RPI has them severely underrated. This should be all the explanation you need for streaming WACball when your family is begging you to come to dinner.

7:00pm

Texas Tech vs TEXAS (ESPN2). Why: The Red Raiders are currently predicted to be a four seed so a run in a very strong Big XII tournament could push them past us. Texas is also a non-conference win.

LSU vs Mississippi State (SEC Network). Why: An LSU run would make for a boost in Michigan’s strength of schedule and also knock Mississippi State (72nd in RPI) below Michigan's conference rivals.

Duke vs Notre Dame (ESPN). Why: I flipped this because Notre Dame is an important non-conference win for Michigan State, who skipped double-plays against every tournament or bubble Big Ten team, and only played one ranked conference team on the road, until they lost by double-digits again to Michigan in the tournament and if you thought it was getting old to point this out you don't know me very well. If ND gets blown out here the committee will remember they were a legendary Teddy V'ing away from losing to Virginia Tech; if they pull off the upset MSU has a stronger case to be ranked ahead of the team they lost to twice, once at home and once at a neutral site, by double digits. Nope, still not old. Michigan can't pass Duke.

9:00pm

Baylor vs West Virginia (ESPN2) Why: Though we’re all secretly hoping West Virginia ends up in Michigan’s bracket we’re not hoping for West Virginia to steal Michigan’s spot. At 31st in RPI we probably shouldn’t worry about WVU, but Baylor can’t hurt us at all and the Mountaineers could.

East Carolina vs UCF (ESPNU) Why: UCF is 78th to RPI so that removes another Md/PSU problem but also UCF is 5th in defense to Kenpom and Michigan is 6th so YAR ME CAROLINA MATEYS or whatever the kids say when they’re not saying “We in here!”

9:30pm

Old Dominion vs La. Tech (no TV). Why: ODU (77th) is another team that needs to get out of Maryland and Penn State’s way.

Friday, March 9

12:00pm

Cincinnati vs Winner of UConn/SMU (ESPN2). Why: Michigan’s competing for a protected seed and there are too many Midwest teams for too few Detroit slots. Cincy is a 2 in the bracket matrix but an early tourney loss could have an outsized effect given their weakish schedule (best non-conf win is @UCLA) and deny Wichita State a shot at a signature win later on.

1:00pm

Winner of A&M/Bama vs Auburn (ESPN). Why: Auburn has a similar resume to Michigan’s right now. A loss could lock them below Michigan, however Auburn could also do us a favor if we get stuck behind them by winning the SEC and keeping Kentucky, Florida, or Tennessee from passing us. So if Auburn wins, just root for them the rest of the way and if they lose root for LSU and upsets galore.

3:00pm

Kentucky vs Winner of Georgia/Vandy vs Mizzou (ESPN). Why: Kentucky is currently a five seed to Bracket Matrix but a run in the SEC Tourney could conceivably pass Michigan while boosting the resumes of Tennessee and Auburn. Florida is the last double-bye in the SEC tourney and are currently a six seed by the way. Mizzou probably has the best shot to blast the SEC threats out of the water.

7:00pm

Winner of LSU/Miss St vs Tennessee (SEC Network). Why: Any chance of Michigan moving up means passing one or two SEC teams, and Tennessee is currently one spot ahead of us in the bracket matrix.

Winner of Temple/Tulane vs Wichita State (ESPNU). Why: Wichita State can’t play in Wichita because they’re the hosts so we really don’t want them winning the AAC tournament and passing Michigan for a protected seed (they’re the second four-seed to Bracket Matrix). Better Cincy than Wichita.

THE EVENT: So long as Michigan survives Thursday (and your band of health-compromised bloggers do as well), we’re going to get together this Friday at 2:30 at Wolverine Brewing for our first MGo-gamewatch party. Sponsor Nick Hopwood of Peak Wealth Management, who also sponsors this post, offered to cover the first couple rounds and some food for our tables. Please let us know if you’re coming so we can get a halfway decent count (if we run out of space signups get first priority: https://goo.gl/forms/t0F28mhfnYRRbKPh2

Also if you’re in New York, Dewey’s Pub down the street from MSG tends to collect the MGoBlog contingent after the game.

Legal disclosure in tiny font: Calling Nick our official financial planner is not intended as financial advice; Nick is an advertiser who financially supports MGoBlog. MGoBlog is not responsible for any advice or other communication provided to an investor by any financial advisor, and makes no representations or warranties as to the suitability of any particular financial advisor and/or investment for a specific investor.

Brian: Ugh, naming a team without a center is like naming a football team without an OL. My pet peeve is first team all conference basketball teams that wouldn't be very good. And this is a season with Ethan Happ and Isaac Haas!

Seth: Haas got so much love all season on BTN I was both surprised and totally fine with him being left out. I But I agree even Beilein wouldn't play a lineup of Bridges-Palmer-KBD-Carr-Edwards.

Ace: Jackson freshman of the year, KBD player of the year, Duncan Robinson(!) 6th man of the year.

Seth: This is the part where Ace is mad Poole didn't make any of these teams.

Ace: They probably got the right guys since Poole emerged so late, though that lineup doesn’t pass the “this would work on the court” test.

Brian: Two pure Cs might be worse than none. Ugh, all broken, I'm just naming my first team because guh.

C Isaac Haas. Not Haas's fault he's got a windmill on the bench behind him and a team around him. Haas has per-minute stats that stack up with anyone, spearheaded the nation's #15 eFG defense, and plays on an actually good team. Happ's numbers are silly in part because he has one other guy who can play on his team; he's more effective on offense but doesn't bring anywhere near the rim protection Haas does. The Mo mismatch applies to both of these guys; Haas was much better at attacking at the other end of the floor.

Ace: Happ is also way worse at free throws, which is a big deal for both of them. Totally agree with this one. In general, everyone seems to have overvalued raw numbers.

There are many reasons your correspondent does not coach basketball. One of them is that I would not look at Michigan's defensive issues from their first game against Iowa and solve them by putting Duncan Robinson on Tyler Cook. Cook eviscerated anyone Michigan sent at him en route to 28 points at Carver-Hawkeye; yesterday my humorous tweet about how things were going for Robinson was not quite hyperbolic enough:

Cook actually had four points at that juncture. He'd finish with ten, on 18% usage, and Iowa does not win a game where Cook ends up being a role player. Without Luka Garza going NBA Jam from 15 feet, Iowa's offense would have collapsed in a wet puddle; even with that net-burning activity the Hawkeyes were held to 0.88 points per possession, their third-worst outing of the year.

Also Robinson singlehandedly shot Iowa out of their zone, and the game, by hitting 6/8 threes—many of them from a couple feet behind the line. This naturally leads to a lot of sentences that start with "if" and end with ellipses, like "if Duncan Robinson can just do that six straight times..." or "if Duncan Robinson is possessed by the soul of Glen Rice..." or "if Duncan Robinson made a pact with the Devil..."

Then, yeah, man. Yeah. Sometimes a Mitch McGary comes from out of nowhere. It's not likely with Robinson, who's been a contributor for long enough that he's established a baseline of performance. We probably just saw Robinson's best game at Michigan.

I can accept one "if", though: if Robinson can be the 40%+ three point shooter he was his first two years, that could take Michigan's offense up to "threatening to high seed" levels. Knockdown three point shooting makes it very difficult for a Michigan opponent to not get caught in possession-based quicksand.

----------------------------------------------

I keep poking it in case it wakes up and trundles off into the sea, leaving me to wonder if it was ever real. It does not wake up. It does not even seem vaguely fluky. Michigan's defense is legitimate. Crashing the boards on this team leads to more transition opportunities the other way than second chances. Iowa is the top OREB team in the Big Ten and Michigan obliterated them. Iowa got 18% of their misses; Michigan got 28% of theirs.

That's a six shot advantage. Turnover margin provided another ten. Even if Michigan is a wonky shooting team, and they usually are this year, there's almost no way to stay in contact with a team that gets 16 more opportunities to score than you do. When only 10 of your attempts are from three, forget about it.

Michigan now combines elite turnover avoidance, elite defensive rebounding, and elite three-point shot prevention. If they were anywhere near their usual level of sharpshooting this team would be really something. They aren't, so they're just a B outfit headed for a middling seed.

But I think there's something in this new paradigm. Michigan will remain an elite turnover avoidance team as long as Beilein is here. Their worst performance in the past six years was 17th. Preventing threes also seems sustainable. They were 218th two years ago when Beilein turned his staff over and hired a defensive coordinator; under Billy Donlon they were 9th; under Luke Yaklich they are 10th. There's no reason that can't continue.

Rebounding is an open question. This is Beilein's best DREB team by almost four full percentage points, and Wagner is (somehow) now the kind of elite DREB vacuum that might move the needle. You'd think Teske would be at least in the vicinity, though.

If Michigan can go from a team that gets a lot of shots to a team that has a huge shot margin because the opposition isn't getting second chances, and that eFG D is helped out by that 3PA prevention, and they can do this with a Typical Beilein level of shooting... well, yeah, that seems like it would be good.

I eagerly anticipate marrying the era where there's a defensive coordinator with the one where Michigan assassinates archdukes with called bank shots. For now, let's hope Maverick Morgan sent Robinson a shitty DM last week.

BULLETS

oblig mad fran [Campredon]

Damn me to hell. Yesterday in our Slack chat I wondered why Fran McCaffrey, a guy with one regular under 6'5", didn't play zone. So of course for the first time in McCaffrey's dang career he sends his team out in a 2-3 zone from the drop. Michigan spent their requisite 5-10 minutes staring uncomprehendingly at it, staking Iowa to an early lead, and limped to a 1.1 PPP performance against a defense that was previously horrible.

Michigan—Robinson—eventually shot Iowa out of it, but honestly they should have stuck with it. The zone completely neutralized the Bohannon-Simpson matchup that was a major problem for the Hawkeyes earlier this year. Simpson had one shot attempt, four assists, and three TOs. Charles Matthews also struggled mightily against it, and the Robinson threes weren't always open or anywhere near the three point line.

Michigan's going to continue facing these zones because they don't have many rise-up threats against it. Matthews and Simpson aren't; Robinson evidently can be but if he's having an off game your other options are... MAAR, I guess, and he loathes being a high usage guy. Hopefully next year's vanguard will make zone a very bad idea—DeJulius, Nunez, and Brazdeikis are all guys who can punish the half-closeouts zones generally provide outside shooters.

[Campredon]

Every day I'm scuffling. Charles Matthews continues to implode down the stretch. We should mention that one of his misses was a Kobe assist that led directly to a Teske dunk. Still: 10 points on 17 shot attempts is grim even if he grabbed four OREBs. A couple of his makes were transition gimmes, too. It's nice that he's able to run the floor and dunk explosively; in our imaginary grading system that's less of a positive than breaking down a set defense.

Michigan just has to live with it, I think. MAAR will turn into a gremlin if he ever gets up to 24% usage in a game, Simpson's total lack of a jump shot limits him, Wagner's already carrying a heavy load, Livers is a role player at this point in his career, and Robinson is 85% Just A Shooter. And it's tough to shove minutes over to Poole when he's 0/4 in a game, as he was here.

Matthews still has a lot of upside to explore but I don't think we're going to see a 180 down the stretch here.

Expand flagrants. Iowa had two hard fouls on Michigan fast breaks that were not declared flagrants. They probably weren't under the current rules. But they should be. On both, the Iowa player had no realistic play on the ball and undercut a Michigan guy in a full sprint. Instead of cool dunk action, we got free throws, and both Michigan players hit the court hard. Those fouls are intentional and are not legitimate defensive plays; they should be two shots and the ball. If you are behind a guy on a fast break you should not be able to grab them without that outcome being worse than no foul at all.

It'll be different without Mo, but maybe not worse. I assume Mo Wagner is headed for the exit after this year even if he's not ranked particularly high on draft boards, because he's done what he can to make himself more attractive to the next level—become an excellent rebounder—and his defensive deficiencies are baked in. I'd love to have him back, but I'm not banking on it.

I am relatively sanguine about this possibility because of Jon Teske, who had 8 rebounds, three offensive, and three steals in 16 minutes. Teske doesn't quite qualify for Kenpom leaderboards—he's about 4 MPG short—but if he did he would be in the top 20 nationally as an offensive rebounder. And his OREB rate goes up as the competition gets stiffer. That's probably a sample size issue, but it does go to show that it's not an artifact of beating up on the Alabama A&Ms of the world. He's also got an absurd-for-a-big steal rate:

among 7-footers who play at least 20% of available minutes. guess where teske is.

He is the blue dot all the way to the right, and would be top 100 in steal rate for all players if he qualified. While Teske isn't an elite shot blocker his post defense is already solid or better, and he's showing flashes of being an efficient scorer with decent usage. He's not far from being this site's Dream Beilein Post, non-Pittsnogle division: an elite possession generator and rim protector. Just has to get that block rate up some and he's going to be a major positive. McGary-esque, perhaps.

FWIW, I was poking around Beilein's history on Kenpom and the one year Michigan's OREB rate wasn't in the red was the Final Four team, which had 20 MPG of McGary, an elite OREB guy (16%), 15 MPG of Jordan Morgan, a very good one (14%), and 5 minutes of Jon Horford, an okay one (10%) along with Glenn Robinson's solid 8% OREB rate. Livers is at 8, Matthews is at 6, and Wagner is at 7. 30 MPG of Teske and his 15% OREB rate has the potential to bring Michigan's OREBs from around 250th to 130th.

That would take Michigan's possession advantage from very good to great.

[Campredon]

Simmons lives! Jaaron Simmons has 20 minutes in the last couple games; he canned a pull-up three in front of the zone and had a clever steal to set himself up for a dunk. With four assists to one turnover he had a productive outing. He's not in Simpson's class as a defender but he is the man who got absolutely zero help from his Ohio teammates a year ago; if there's a team daring Michigan to shoot over a zone he might be a decent option. Certainly more of a threat than Simpson to do so.

BTN gives, BTN takes. On the one hand, Robbie Hummel is already very good early in his broadcast career. He offers intelligent studio analysis and his color is mostly unnoticeable—a major positive—until he says something insightful. On the other, I find it impossible to listen to Jon Crispin for two hours without thinking about the sweet release of death.

THE ESSENTIALS

THE US

Michigan overcame the Trohl Center in their most recent outing, and now they get the platonic opposite of the deliberate, steady, clang-tastic Badgers. Michigan's offense continue to oscillate between clobberin' and clobbered, with little in between. This is going to have to be a clobberin' outing, what with Iowa's miserable defense and excellent offense.

This is Michigan's last should-win of the season, with a home game against a very good OSU team next and then two road games against high NIT seeds to finish the season. Losing this one would be a bleah lead in to crunch time.

THE LINEUP CARD

Projected starters are in bold. Hover over headers for stat explanations. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open. It's a free country.

Pos.

#

Name

Yr.

Ht./Wt.

%Min

%Poss

ORtg

SIBMIHHAT

G

3

Jordan Bohannon

So.

6'0, 180

78

20

122

Not at all

SG forced to play point, good A:TO ratio. Lethal shooter, but terrible inside the line.

Be the dream live the dream be the dream be the drea ive dre be the am towel. [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

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-------------------------------

Is there a way to unlock a Beilein-level offense this year?

BiSB: Play Iowa?

Seth: Make threes...wait for it...in BOTH halves.

Ace: It’d be good to start this discussion by mentioning the main issues holding this offense back. Shooting—both three-point and free-throw—is certainly a problem, but I think the bigger one is the lack of a player other than Wagner who can regularly create off the dribble.

Charles Matthews tries but his ballhandling is not good. He’s got a 90 OTG and 23% TO rate against top-50 teams.

BiSB: And Wagner creating off the dribble, while fun and Nick-Ward-ankle-melting, isn't terribly efficient.

Ace: With that said, I’d like to present this.

(body-bag opponents removed)

Poole is the only other wing who’s shown a willingness and ability to attack the basket, and his shooting ability gives him more openings because teams have to close out on him hard. His handle is significantly better than Matthews’s — Poole’s TO rate against top-50 teams is 10%, and while that’d probably rise with a bigger role, it’s a great place to start.

BiSB: Ace, do you have an opinion on Jordan Poole you'd like to share with the class?

Ace: I’m a fan.

BiSB: But seriously, Poole is shooting 37% from three in conference play, and that is with a shot selection that is... robust. Is "robust" the right word?

Ace: Brian mentioned the direction basketball is rapidly headed in basketbullets and Poole is the guy who best fits that — a guy who can create his own shot from anywhere.

Brian: It's not really a word. It's more like a feeling.

AHHHHH

Seth: And that's why 10,000 angry paleontologists just descended on the comments.

Brian: I'd go with "exuberant," if forced to boil Poole down into the ham-fisted thing we call language. But srs his internal monologue is yellin' aussie cowboy if anyone's is.